


In Passing

by emef



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Brooding, Gen, Public Transportation, Short, daydream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emef/pseuds/emef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock keeps emotions and orgasms separate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to enemyofperfect

It would slip through Sherlock's mind at odd times, quietly, when he wasn't paying attention. He thought his libido was a thing he could calm with regular attention. He thought that if he had enough orgasms, on a regular enough basis, he wouldn't have to think about it the rest of the time. But every once in a while it hit him with confusing thoughts, at confusing times, as though waiting for the very moment he'd forgotten all about it.

A girl was staring at him on the L train. She had hair that was two different colours, white and black split right down the middle, interesting, and eyes that bore through him like she knew something about him that he didn't. For a second, Sherlock wondered if he knew her. And then she looked away, and he realized that no, of course, she was just one of those people who occasionally noticed him for his physical appearance.

He glanced up at her again, and saw that she was compelling, somehow. Her hair fell over her cheekbones just so, and he thought that maybe, she was someone who could be very funny, and very clever, and very thoughtful. Suddenly, confusingly, he thought of an entirely different timeline, a different timeline for his entire life, in which this girl made him laugh and shared her clever thoughts with him, and trusted him with her brain and her body. He thought: what if she was sitting next to him, instead of across the aisle, and had her arm around him, and kissed his cheek because she loved him? What if she listened to him talk about one of his cases, and made intelligent, useful suggestions? What if she took him home? What if…

Sherlock tried to think of the last time he'd had an orgasm. It had only been a few days - not that long. And this daydream wasn't sexual. It was, a bit, but mostly it wasn't.

When he glanced up again, she was gone. Ephemeral, like everyone else. And he'd missed his station.


	2. A Brown Study

It was nice to be taking a longer walk back to the brownstone, really. The sun was just falling, and the city felt warm, and soft around the edges. Sherlock considered the pavement, and thought to himself that really, moving to New York was the best thing he'd ever done.

But the girl on the train... He felt like the alternate reality he'd glimpsed had seemed plausible, even if it was just for a moment. He'd quickly cycled through a series of images - fantasies, really - of he and this girl, this… phantom Conventional Girlfriend… He'd seen her holding his hand, he's seen her travelling with him, he'd seen her sitting on a couch, reading a novel, and absently running her hand through his hair. He'd imagined her staring up at him, her chin lifted up just so, waiting for a kiss, requiring nothing else from him. He was sort of tickled at the thought of a significant other. It seemed oddly believable.

The daydream continued all the way home, until he walked up steps of the brownstone, and saw Watson's coat. He saw Watson's coat, and saw the books she had moved since that morning, and smelled the faint aroma of her shampoo, and Sherlock felt the weight of his choices hit him all at once. He looked at the physical evidence of his life with Watson, a life in which he'd created a rather extreme barrier between people he cared about and people he was sexually involved with, and he felt bereft, as though he'd stomped all over his own feelings.

Wrenched from his daydream, he made his way to the kitchen. Would he be different if Irene had been a real person, rather than a character made up by a psychopath? Or was he always going to be like this? Perhaps the psychopathy was necessary to his original attraction to Irene. Perhaps he would have found a real Irene uninteresting. Was the self-destruction in his romantic attachments inescapable? The familiar thought spiral swirled around him. He'd thought about these things before. He'd asked the questions. But really he never meant to answer them. He couldn't deduce himself. He knew, he'd tried.

Sherlock ate his cereal, and sulked. He needed companionship. Maybe he'd talk to Watson about getting a second turtle.


End file.
